


Infected

by NeverComingHome



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3508385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverComingHome/pseuds/NeverComingHome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty is a self-aware parasite. 'Jim' a.k.a. 'Richard' was just his latest host body. Sherlock uses the body to fake his own death and it ends up in the morgue with Molly. While she's doing an autopsy on it, the parasite infects her and slowly, she begins to change...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infected

**Author's Note:**

> A cleaned up repost of an anon fill from LJ, set after series two.

It starts with a twitch in the night and everybody laughs until it happens to them, until they’re lying in the bed and they feel like they’re falling and jerk upright with a hand over their heart. It happens a million times a night in a million different places and it doesn't necessarily mean anything except when it does.

Molly shivers and falls back to sleep.

~*~  
John tells her he’s felt strange since ‘that day’ too and she smiles weakly at him because keeping secrets was always her forte even before she learned how to lie. She lets him get it out of his system and for once people’s ability to feel as if they’re alone when she’s in the room works. At the end of it he shakes his head and forever separates himself from the rest by taking her hand and saying,

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

He shrugs, disarmingly cheerful. “For this.”

_I hate you John Watson_  

She snatches her hand from his more quickly than necessary but he doesn't notice, mobile in hand as he says something about his sister and things that never change. Molly nods numbly and watches him go, unable to summon the politest of expressions as he disappears from sight. Once he’s gone she rests both her palms on the table, arms shaking. I hate you John Watson I hate you John Watson. Not even a voice, closer to a chemical reaction, like dye that slowly turns a glass of water red at first contact, emotions curling and spreading within her.

~*~  
The scalpel is cold, amazingly cold, how has she been using it for so long without realizing how positively right it feels in her hands? Her fingers manipulate it with ease, the edging is perfect for concealment, folding into her lifeline at the simplest of twitches. It gleams so brightly in the light, but a small turn to the left dulls it. Light and dark right and wrong, what fresh faced specimen created such a marvel?

Molly watches the flesh part beneath the tip and grins, thinking of the medical textbooks and dinner that await her when she’s finished.

“Oh god, what are you doing?”

Molly snaps to attention at the sight of the intern who has their mask pulled over their nose. The corpse before her whose chest was once white with a thin red Y is now splayed beneath the scalpel which sticks handle out from the throat. Molly’s eyes widen.

“Experiment,” she blurts, “get out.”

“But Dr.-”

“GET OUT!” She yells and watches the young man scurry away before the tears fill her eyes. She asks herself what’s happening as if expecting an answer. 'Rage', cries her body, but it feels like laughter.

~*~  
She gets a prescription and it works for a while (she can dictate cause of death without smiling anyway), though she still can't be around John. He’s struggling with Sherlock’s death after all and it hurts too much knowing she could set him free with the truth. Maybe there’s a moment before the pills kick in that it’s not the main reason, but Molly is made of stronger things and can last half an hour a day with her fists clenched wondering if screams varied from person to person.

~*~  
“Thanks for this.” Sally tucks the file away. “Our usual guy’s in court, it’s a whole mess.”

Molly waves a hand dismissively, “It's no problem.”

“No listen, I wanted to say, I appreciate you still helping us despite what happened with him.”

“Who?”

“Holmes. Ran into his doctor the other day and he-”

“-doesn’t speak for me,” Molly interrupts, “Dr. Watson does not speak for me.”

The other woman grins, “I’ll see you around then?”

“Count on it.”

~*~  
One year after the reported death of Sherlock Holmes Molly Hooper lets someone die.

She hasn’t filled the prescription in weeks because it no longer keeps her from looking into the mirror and not seeing just herself. Her hair hasn’t dulled, if anything it's lightened, and no matter how many faces she pulls her smile never changes, but there’s a tinge of darkness around her eyes. She looks very closely and is oddly reminded of Jim. She’d seen him around, offered to have a look at his bandaged wrist but he'd nervously turned her down. Nothing big, nothing that would make him look at her like he’d never seen her in his life but wished he had when he asked her out. Strange-that look-because for all the times she read it Molly had never been able to figure out how eyes could be expressive, but his were in the way hers are. Black and brown like dirt and death.

“Insulin!” Her boss gasps and Molly, the Molly she’s known since she’s been able to know, reaches for the black bag only to pause, wait.

When he stops moving she sits behind his desk and calls for help, her voice thick with sobs and a touch of mania as she leans back in the chair, glancing around the office at the pale green walls.

“You liked it better white,” she says thoughtfully after hanging up, “white it is.”

~*~  
This thing that she carries, that she now knows isn’t in any way apart of her, booms instead of whispers. It no longer tiptoes its way into her soul, but launches a full attack and makes her need it while it’s happening. It tells her body that killing is key to her survival and manipulation is love and Molly wants to be loved, doesn’t she? Doesn’t she want to smile? If she unlocks the door so that the boys on graveyard can smuggle the product in through the back then it will let her smile; it can make her forget.

Her finger shakes on the trigger as she fights it.

“I won't.”

She does.

~*~  
Sherlock dreams of a time when there won't be nail marks on the wall or blood on the steps for him to find. John stands in the middle of the empty kitchen with lipstick on his collar and his wrists tied, shaking his head when he sees Sherlock.

“Welcome home.”

All the signs are there, but something is distinctly different, the familiar method with unfamiliar execution. Sherlock takes another step forward.

“I tried to make it easy," she sings, coming into view,"you could’ve died and they would’ve cremated Jim’s body so I’d have died too but no,” she chuckles, “you just had to be clever.”

Molly, but not Molly. Her mannerisms, the way her hair is slicked back and the form fitting pants suit that makes her look taller; fitting for the worst reasons, the worst person. 

“Fits me like a glove this one, thinks of you all the time. No wonder we got on so well before.” Moriarty stretches, gun in hand. “Now. Where were we?”


End file.
